Two Halves: chapter 28

chapter 28

When they tried to lead her to one of the booths in the bar Heather simply shook her head in protest. It was understandable. This where she worked, and she probably did not want her fellow employees to see her like this. Zeckle was finally able to make her respond, but unfortunately it was inaudible squeak. Nicolas decided that it would be best to take her up to their room. Heather never moved more than a foot from Zeckle the entire trip through the bar and on the stairs upwards. She seemed to be using Zeckle as her support pole, much to Zeckle's distress. Whenever Heather buried her face in Zeckle's shoulder she would look up at Nicolas in a silent plea. Nicolas didn't know how to deal with it any better than Zeckle did, and just hoped that she would calm down once they reached the room.

 

Nicolas opened the door to their room, and led the Heather inside. She plopped down onto the bed for a moment and just sat there, sniffling weakly. Her eyes were red rimmed and there was a small patch of hair missing from just above her ear where they had used the info spike. The needle burrowed into your brain and linked up with the nerves to provide the user with unlimited information from the victims mind.

 

“Heather,” Nicolas said calmly “what happened?” He sat next to her on the bed. Her tears had mostly stopped now, with only the occasional globe of water rolling down her face. She looked into his eyes and sniffed loudly, and with a slight squeak began to speak.

 

“I really don’t know. When I left you guys I walked down to my apartment. One of my neighbors, Miss Shinnle, asked me why I had been gone so late. She is such a kind old lady, living in this part of town. I become her friend because I felt sorry for her. She turned out to be really nice, and helped me out when the job up here would go sour. Which with this place sometimes it isn’t safe to come up for over a week.” she babbled, she talked quickly trying to get the information out, as if she didn’t she wouldn’t be able to tell it later.

 

“I told her about you, and I told her about the bar fight, and what you talked about, and everything. Afterwards I though I heard someone going down the stairs. It musta’ been someone from Salex, and they went to tell one of the guardhouses. Probably got a big reward for the information.” she fumed. She pouted angrily at the idea of someone profiting from her distress.

 

“So they came for me. Two Salex security guys used their hack-all passkeys to get into the apartment. They came to my door and broke it, and when they tried to take me I used this,” she reached to her ear and took out the earring. Now that Nicolas was looking at it he say that it was engraved.

 

“You had a bound stone?” he looked at it closer “This is rather expensive to, how did you get this?” indeed it was fairly powerful. Even after it had released its spell a faint mist of magical energy was surrounding it. Normally bound stones could only be used every few day, but this one appeared to be charging again much faster. It would probably be ready to go off again in another few hours.

 

“A old boyfriend, he gave it to me” she mumbled while putting it back into her ear. Zeckle had sat down beside her and was now examining her earring. Her eyes darted over its small surface.

 

“I think I know this guy.” she said triumphantly “He is a fire demon, one of the ones who fought with us during the Blaze war. I thought all the demons on our side were captured by Salex, ‘cept for me.”

 

“It’s not what you think. He was nice. He wanted to protect me, and he gave me this to prove it. I didn’t care he was a Salex guard, but… A while back, he got stationed in Earth-2. I never saw him after that, but he did send me a message. It was slipped under my door one day, but I know it was from him. It said “Can’t deal with Salex anymore. Need to hide. Sorry, but I can’t bring you with me”.” he reached up and touched the earring lovingly.

 

“Anyway, what happened after that? How did Sixteen Surgeons find you?” asked Nicolas. He was slightly impatient now, but took a deep breath for moment and put his hand on her shoulder. Trying to comfort her. 

 

“I ran out of my apartment when the two of them were dealing with Fluffy.” she looked at their perplexed faces for a moment, then said “that’s what I call the demon. He’s nice. I talk to him sometimes when I’m lonely.”

 

“Anyway, I ran out of there, and onto the street. Two knocked out Salex guards were on the pavement, and the man with the melted face was there. He told me to come with him, that it would be safe. I believed him” She was close to tears again, and Zeckle, after a look form Nicolas, put her arm over Heather’s shoulder.

 

“I don’t remember much after that. It was all kind of a blur; I think they used something on me on the way. There was a man though. He was the one who used the infospike on me.” she shuddered slightly at the memory “ Afterwards they tied me up and left me in that little room. Then they brought me into the room with you guys.” Behind them the door creaked open. Bestalel stood in the doorway.

 

“It took much less time than I anticipated. They have been exchanging messages with Mr. Ernie, and were very well informed. I simply had to fill a few gaps in their knowledge.” he slumped slightly as he strolled in, and came to rest in front of Heather.

 

“I am sorry, but you must come with me, you are being placed under the custody of the Rust River Raiders until further notice. It is for your own safety ma’am.”

Author's Note

I need to apologize to everyone. First of all i am sorry for not publishing chapters for the last few days. My grandfather has been admitted to the hospital, so it has required me to run around a lot. I hardly had time to write.

Second I am sorry for the quality of the last couple of chapter. I was typing them directly into writerscafe, and not into Word. Writerscafe has a terrible spelling check, and the mistakes were far to many. I am sorry if it was hard to read. This chapter should be better, and I will be updating with new and improved chapters tomorrow.

Reviews

[Miss Coral]

I hope that your grandfather is doing better. :)
This chapter had some mistakes, grammatical, tense wise, and some typos. I thought it was another good installment, though I'm not sure about Heather.

[Daniel Gardner]

Don't apologize. You're doing just fine. Sounds good so far. Keep up the good work.

[James Watts]

Don't fret. Writing fast is not always the key. Writing fast is where you tend to rush things and create inconsistencies. Just take your time and you will be fine. And I do hope your grandfather is okay. My prayers are with you, my friend.

[Dutch Jr.]

I was waitin for this one. Good job, and I wish your grandfather the best. Love this chapter, your story is intriguing.